Kevin Kelly (not the Irish one) posts a great Meta-review of Review Websites:
My model of the ideal review site then is one built on a broad base of user reviews, in addition to a field of experts conducting uniform and comparative reviews, and ends up with an extract of top picks or other recommendations of what to get. I have not yet seen a perfect site. What doesn't work for me is a site sporting a vast matrix of all products and their features, or a site recommending a few products --ones that they happen to also sell, or a site with evaluations of gear they happen to get free from cooperative manufacturers, or heaven forbid, a site that has a few feeble reviews and is supported by a zillion ads. There are some wonderful review sites. I found the following to be useful. For the most part they have what the weak review sites don't have: a minimal ad environment, no direct connection to sales, a means to extract recommendations and not just feature lists, and users with enough experience to indicate how tools live up to others like it. I've ranked these "best of reviews sites" from 1 to 5 stars, listed here in descending usefulness to me.
Kelly recommends review sites across a great range of categories: not just computer hardware and software, but outdoor gear, flashlights, board games, high-end audio, telescopes, recumbent bikes, digital photography, and many more. Kevin's the coolest tool.
[via Cool Tools]
Posted by johndan at September 27, 2004 10:31 PM